1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to distributed data processing systems and in particular to distributed data processing systems with cluster-aware virtual input/output servers (VIOSes). Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a method, data processing system and computer program product that enable election of primary nodes within a VIOS cluster.
2. Description of the Related Art
Each Virtual Input/Output Server (VIOS) can provide I/O resources to hundreds of virtual machines. In one configuration, thousands of virtual storage block devices can be exported to hundreds of virtual machines. With such configurations, management of all of these devices becomes very difficult. Management tools have been proposed to attempt to improve manageability for these virtual devices. One such tool stores object data into the tool's local data store (db2 database). This database is populated by first discovering the endpoints on the VIOS and then querying for resources. However, with this tool, once the discovery is complete, the tool continuously polls all VIOS partitions in the tool's domain to keep the data within the tool's local data store in a current state. Use of this tool provides a solution that is not scalable and makes the tool unusable in a cluster environment.